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Friday, January 3, 2014

Cruises - Love or Hate Them? I'm Addicted!

If I lived close to a port I would probably find ways to take a cruise several times a year. I have always had a love of water and being on a big boat in the ocean just makes me feel exhilarated! My friend Karen and I have officially planned our next cruise, which will be in March out of Port Canaveral.

Karen pretty much leaves it up to me to find the cruises, at least she has in the last two years, our first two being with Cricut of course and being planned for us. This year we had at first thought we would do Carnival again and do a 7 day cruise but then after some scheduling issues we decided to go with our original dates of when I would be in Orlando and have gone with a Royal Caribbean cruise on the Enchantment of the Seas and it is a 4 night cruise.

During my research I did find that it is larger than the ship we were on last year and larger than the one we were on during our first cruise with Holland America. We did think the Carnival Ecstasy to be a tad small but okay. We did like the Holland America ship and since this one is a bit larger we figure it will be fine. One of our reasons for choosing Royal Caribbean was that we have found they do not skimp on the booze! We never had a bad drink when we sailed with them last time.

Our stops this time are CocoCay which is one of the cruise lines private islands and Nassau. We weren't impressed with Nassau last time but then again it was a short period of time there and we were recovering from a massive party the night before. This time we have ALL day and I am researching beaches that will be nice for us to go spend the day and not cost an arm and a leg. We will also have one day of sailing.

I did tell Karen we need to find one cruise line and stick with it so we could start gathering points and get some of the good perks that cruisers get and maybe after this year will can decided if Royal Caribbean is the one for us!

10 comments:

I love cruising, and Royal Caribbean is definitely over and above Carnival. I like both, but Carnival is a good, basic cruise for a great cost. Royal Caribbean is a little pricier, but much more elegant. Both are now sailing out of Galveston also, which makes it easier for me.

Cruising is the best of all trips. You are made to feel like royalty every single moment from boarding till leaving the ship to go home no matter what your stature in life is. The only problem is coming home to where family won't continue to pamper you. Now why don't they understand (haha).

I have never been on a cruise, but imagine that I would totally LOVE it. Now if I can talk my land-loving husband into it ... after all, I would hate to have to venture off on my own and leave him behind. (*wink*) It sounds like you have really done your cruise homework and selected one that will be great for you. I know you and Karen are going to have a fabulous time.

I have only been on one cruise which was Royal Caribean and we loved it! Our trip was to Alaska, and no it's not cold, very pleasant weather and just beautiful! We had some special needs and Royal Caribean met and exceeded our expectations without even a blink of an eye! When we arrived at our first port, Princess was also docked and we were alerted that there was an outbreak on their ship and many people were ill. All the necessary steps were taken to insure our health and well being as well as making us aware. They were very pro-active in communicating and taking action. We were so impressed with how things were handled. When we arrived back in Indianapolis, there were many families waiting for their parties (who were on the Princess) and were never informed they were still hospitalized in Canada! You will be treated like royalty!

I totally love cruising. We did our first in 2012 to Alaska on Norwegian. It was our 20th anniversary, so we splurged. In 2013 we did a Carnival out of Galveston on the Magic, and really enjoyed that as well. We are in Corpus Christi, so Galveston is very doable for us. I really, really, really want to go on a scrapbook cruise. There is one from Galveston in May. Just need a buddy to go with. We enjoy cruising so much that we have a new tag line. Anytime we are doing something fun, we say the only way for it to be better was "if we were doing this on a ship." Works for anything!!